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Dar es Salaam, Tanzania – Tanzania announced this week that it has lifted a controversial ban on banning pregnant girls from returning to school, a decision taken after years of pressure from activists to call what the government calls a policy of discrimination.
On Wednesday, Education Minister Joyce Ndalicha he said the government would remove all barriers to re-entry for all students who wish to return to school after leaving school, including due to pregnancy.
“It’s the right time,” Leonard Akwilapo, the ministry’s permanent secretary, told Al Jazeera. “There was a lot of discussion about this and it seemed like society was ready to lift that ban. Social media has been full of discussions about this issue with many people who want change. ”
Teachers say that the policy of the 1960s was strongly established in the previous administration of former President John Magufuli, who died in March this year and was replaced by Samia Suluhu Hassan, the first female president of Tanzania.
Magufuli once said that his government would not educate mothers.
“I give money to a student to learn for free. And then she gets pregnant, gives birth and after that, she goes back to school. No, not during my tenure, ”he said in 2017.
As her statements often became official policy, this attitude forced pregnancy tests and expulsion of girls found pregnant. Investigators and campaigners also suffered from hostility from government officials and supporters.
“Activists have paid a huge price in fighting for this change,” said Mshabaha, coordinator of the Tanzania group Mshabaha Change, which has campaigned long against the policy.
“Those at the front line saw that we had a personal political agenda against former President John Magufuli. We were spreading foreign values, and encouraging prostitution among children in schools. It seems that the authorities realized that we were only fighting for girls’ education rights.”
In February 2020, Zitto Kabwe, the leader of the opposition ACT Wazalendo party, received death threats from members of parliament after addressing a coalition of activists who wrote to the World Bank to lend a loan to the government because of “discriminatory policies”. keeping pregnant girls out of school.
“Investing more in sex education”
Now the next most critical step is to focus on prevention efforts, said Neema Mgendi, founder and CEO of Okoa New Generation, an organization that develops the skills of girls who left school as a result of pregnancy.
“Most girls who get pregnant in schools don’t have a basic sex education,” Mgendi said. “As we praise this development, the most important step now is to invest more in sex education and raise awareness among students about the impact of teenage pregnancies and child marriages and encourage them to continue in school.”
The World Bank said last year that more than 5,000 pregnant girls in Tanzania were banned from continuing their studies every year, as well as returning to school after giving birth.
Proponents of the ban argued that allowing pregnant girls to stay in school would promote “promiscuity” among students and that more girls would become pregnant. Although there is no evidence to support this, research has found that lack of sex education and poverty can have a significant impact on the likelihood of girls becoming pregnant in adolescence in Tanzania.
“The right to education”
Earlier this year, a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) mentioned that girls who became pregnant while in school were exploiting their financial needs. It has been reported that men, often mototaxi drivers, were offered to buy essential goods or travel to school in exchange for sex.
School officials and teachers frequently used the country’s Education Act and its 2002 expulsion regulations to expel girls. Regulations allow expulsion when a student has committed an “immoral” crime or if a student has taken a marriage.
In the July and August studies, HRW found that some girls were expelled on Form 4 in their final year of high school before submitting to grading exams after schools had taken mandatory pregnancy tests in the middle of or a little earlier.
Tanzania has now become one of the last two countries in Africa to lift the ban on the schooling of pregnant school girls. Only Equatorial Guinea remains in politics, after Sierra Leone also turned around last year.
Elin Martinez, a senior researcher in HRW’s children’s rights division, said years of research in many African countries have shown that simply removing a policy that denies girls the right to education was enough.
“A policy or legal framework needs to be put in place to ensure that girls who have been unable to return to school due to pregnancy or maternity leave can be actively denied the right to education,” Martinez said.
“It is very important to have a framework that specifically defines their right to education and clarifies what school officials and education ministry officials need to do locally and at all levels.”
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